Personal milestone: 1Cr in rev as a bootstrapper
Team is less than 10 people still, slowly growing. Net profit could be higher, that's top priority to work on now. Total cash invested by founders was 15L over 3-4 years.
Yearly revenue :
2019 - less than 30k 20 - 1.5L (after pivot) 22 - 50L
Getting to the first lakh and then to 10 lakhs was probably the most challenging part.
We thought of shutting down multiple times, struggled through multiple fights between founders. Glad we didn't stop working and pulled through.
This is my 4th or 5th attempt at starting up. Except for 1, other attempts didn't even get to incorporation stage.
Would love to hear from other bootstrappers and their experience.
We’re at about $400K bootstrapped with a team of 2 (me included), started in 2019. Revenue almost doubled in last 18 months.
My personal observation is that if you’re going to bootstrap, you need to go after high margin, niche markets (unless you’re doing services) because you don’t have a lot of money for marketing.
Our main growth channel is affiliates and SEO. Growth will be slow so we just have to keep at it. Also, beware of VC-funded competitors.
How is the tax stuff like? Does it eat into majority of the revenue?
Not at all.
My co-founder is American and the company is registered in the US. As it’s bootstrapped, we can pull out most of the cash and here in India, I pay 15% on total income (paid 15% on ITR filing of 1.2 crore last FY)
2018 - 5 months into my first job, quit it, saved 2L rupees. Met my cofounder, bootstrapped by putting 2L rupees each. And then subsequently started making revenue without taking any takeaway salary except expenses (1000-5000 rupees monthly)
2021- touched revenue of $100,000 monthly, got funded then after but didnt really need external money anymore. Took it just to be safe.
2022- sold the company
SaaS is an amazing industry to bootstrap. Unit economics is positive. Revenue grew 100x but team grew 2.5x only (from 5 to 12)
Sold the company with only 10-15 team member. Everyone took an exit for their next phase in life.
Awesome progress 👏 ..what do you do?
Everything, including product management. But I'm mostly responsible for marketing, branding and communication.
Great . What does your org do?
